


and we descend

by tentaclemonster



Series: 100 Fandoms Challenge [36]
Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Genre: 100 Fandoms Challenge, Caves, Dwarves, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22192282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentaclemonster/pseuds/tentaclemonster
Summary: In which Hades is a dwarf who lives in an underground cavern and Persephone finds the place much less frightening than she would have thought.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Series: 100 Fandoms Challenge [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1257083
Kudos: 26
Collections: The 100 Multifandom Challenge





	and we descend

**Author's Note:**

> 036/100 from the 100 Fandoms Challenge. Written for prompt #34 – fall.

The air was headier underground. 

Thicker, as though there was a hand about Persephone’s throat restricting how much she took in, and with an undercurrent of dust and earth woven in every breath she could take. To her surprise, it was also warm. 

When Persephone imagined the underworld, she’d always imagined it to be cold. Dreary. A place where your skin would be covered in permanent bumps from the chill, at best. A place where you would turn to solid ice, at worst, frozen from the skin down to the very pit of yourself.

But this place was not like her imaginings. 

It was as warm as a mild summer’s day and the thickness of the air the same as it would be on such a day above ground, full of a humidity that lacked wetness. The smell of earth, too, was so similar to the smell of the toiled soil that covered her hands after a day working in her gardens that the experience of entering the underworld was not as frightening as it could have been.

Rather, it was familiar in a way, and it was that familiarity and her surprise at it that had her taking another step downward and then another and another and then – tentatively – taking the hand of the one who had led her down here to begin with so he could lead her down much further. 

The man was short, shorter than even the stalagmites that jutted up out of the smooth sand colored ground, and perhaps that was why she hadn’t been afraid of him at first, because how could one be afraid of someone so small? But even as he got closer to her above ground and she could tell he had in presence what he lacked in stature, even after he asked for her name and told her his and she recognized it – 

Persephone had still not been afraid. 

He had smiled at her kindly, extended his hand, and then extended an invitation along with it.

And she’d taken it.

And his hand had been warm then as it was now.

And then the earth had opened up into stairs the color of ocean soaked sand and he walked down with her following a step or two behind into this world that was familiar and warm, where stone spikes grew from the ground and the sky, and rivers ran through the walls. 

And Persephone, ever curious, continued to descend.


End file.
